Last week Iwrote about howNokia is applying what I call pattern#7 – force yourcompetitors onto a multi-front battle. Nokia uses this strategy soperfectly that I decided to continue with that focus in today’s blog.

Nokia hasuniquely learned to leverage its “platforms” as much as possible. It hasidentified a group of hardware products, and then it uses different softwareprograms depending on the consumer need (from a $20 phone to a $1000 mobiledevice).

Just as mostmulti-brand car companies like GM and Toyota build multiple cars from the sameplatform, Nokia works hard to produce multiple phones leveraging severalwell-designed platforms.

The risk, ofcourse, is that you will dilute the uniqueness of your products as, arguably,GM has done. The advantage is that by doing it correctly, one can complicatecompetitive efforts and leverage this pattern to one’s advantage.

Byeffectively utilizing platforms to produce other products or services, acompany can keep its overhead low while producing more income relating to a newproduct. Ask yourself this questiontoday: Is there a platform from one of my product “A” that would help me createa product “B” or give my product “C” an advantage?KK